Jeff Ooi makes some strange assumptions about BitTorrent technology.
Ooi’s paranoia over BitTorrent security is misplaced since you’re more likely to get malware from an e-mail attachment or surfing the web.
His concerns over copyright infringement, on the other hand, are worth taking seriously.
It’s worth pointing out, though, not every file distributed via BitTorrent is illegal. Blizzard, for instance, has been using BitTorrent to distribute World of Warcraft files to gamers.
However, I’m not sure of the legality of BitTorrent-distributed broadcast TV shows. It strikes me as being just as innocuous as taping a show and passing the tape to a friend.
While I haven’t read of any action taken by TV networks over free broadcast TV shows distributed via BitTorrent, at least one copyright holder has contacted ISPs and individuals due to copyright infringement of a pay-TV show.
(And lest you think action would threatened only against downloaders in the US, I should point out copyright holders in the US are known to contact foreigners … though not always with the desired result.)
Thus far, BitTorrent TV seems to have had a negligible impact locally. This isn’t surprising since the broadband penetration rate in Malaysia is still unacceptably low at the moment and you would very much want a broadband connection to download TV show episodes since they’re typically between 150 and 400MB in size.
(On a side note, why is the Malaysian broadband penetration rate deemed unacceptably low? Did they consider the fact not everyone in Malaysia needs or wants a fat net pipe? What incentive does a teh tarik stall vendor have to pay RM66 a month for a 512/128kbps connection anyway?)
